Lots of discussion about Wikipedia’s public utility has occurred since its inception. On one hand, it’s true: just about anyone can make edits to the information, unlike physical encyclopedias or websites owned by the former purveyors of these informative hardbound reams of paper. On the other hand, the editing process is not some Wild West. […]
More than 600 communities across the U.S. have decided to build their own broadband networks after decades of predatory behavior, slow speeds, and high prices by regional telecom monopolies. That includes the city of Bountiful, Utah, which earlier this year voted to build a $48 million fiber network to deliver affordable, gigabit broadband to every […]
And here we go again. we’ve been talking about how copyright has gotten in the way of cultural preservation generally for a while, and more specifically lately when it comes to the video game industry. The way this problem manifests itself is quite simple: video game publishers support the games they release for some period […]
Over the last few years, as we’ve seen state legislatures and governors focusing on culture war legislating, rather than sensible policy legislating, one thing that’s become popular — kicked off by Texas’s anti-abortion law, but gladly embraced by Democrats as well — is the idea of trying to avoid judicial scrutiny by taking enforcement out […]
As information started to leak out from the… everywhere about NSO Group’s secondhand contribution to surveillance abuses all over the world, the world (except for the worst of NSO’s customers) began taking action. Even the government that facilitated many of NSO’s sales to human rights violators decided it might be time to toss a few […]
The lawsuits against Elon Musk’s ex-Twitter continue to pile up, but here’s one where the law itself is ridiculous and unjust. As you’ll recall, the EU Copyright Directive included a link or snippet tax for news (which they call a “neighboring right”) similar to the link taxes we’ve discussed in Australia and Canada. The main […]
Designing a game world takes time and can get quite repetitive. Why not have the game build its world for you? That’s the goal of procedural content generation, and you’ll come to grips with it in the Complete Unity Game Developer Course. Focusing on the tile-based method for procedural level creation, you’ll explore how to […]
The best Streisanding is the Streisanding you give yourself, as the adage goes. The adage is even enshrined at Wikipedia, where it points to the creator of the term: Mike Masnick. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. The best thing to do to counter negative content is presenting your own side of the case. The worst […]
For the better part of the decade, the generally feckless FCC has been trying to require that broadband ISPs be a little more honest about broadband fees and limits at the point of sale. So they cooked up the idea of a “nutrition label for broadband,” detailing all of the little caveats and restrictions (real world speeds, […]
The gears of justice turn slowly, but they do turn. Late last year we discussed a delightful gentleman named Roland Macher, who goes by “Spanky”, because of course he does. Spanky was a restaurant owner and real estate businessman who found himself in prison for over 2 years because paying your taxes is hard or […]
Some unfortunate news. AZ Central reported yesterday that James Larkin, who was a free speech pioneer who built an alt-weekly newspaper empire, and then spun out the controversial classifieds ads site Backpage, died by suicide, one week before his latest trial. While there’s been plenty of discussion about Backpage, related to questions around Section 230, […]
For years, we’ve pointed out that the FBI is more interested in easy wins than actually securing the nation. And for years, the FBI has maddeningly refused to take our harsh criticism into consideration. It has done its own thing, because of course it has. Who could possibly stop it? A mass violators of rights […]
This is not a surprise, because the company made it clear it planned to do exactly this, but Meta has now begun the process of stopping links to news sources from appearing in Canada, something that Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez insisted would never happen. The company says it will take a few weeks to […]
For several years, the government was able to route around the Fourth Amendment by turning cell service providers into proxy tracking devices. Thanks to the Third Party Doctrine, location data generated by cell phones wasn’t given an expectation of privacy. A Supreme Court decision handed down in 2012 strongly suggested the government needed to obtain […]
MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a floating stand for smartphone FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android phones, […]
The grand old enshittification curve strikes again. Remember, as stated by Cory Doctorow, the process of enshittification entails these steps: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Way […]
While Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband technology is too expensive and capacity-constrained to seriously put a dent in US broadband problems, it’s helpful in low connectivity situations like disasters, select parts of rural America, or the war in Ukraine. But Musk’s growing power over the fledgling LEO satellite sector has started to […]
More than a decade ago, it came to our attention that the NFL was out in the streets of New Orleans threatening small businesses for the crime of using New Orleans related language alongside the use of images of the fleur de lis. Those actions were quite silly, given that the symbol and much of […]
Last month we noted how media reform activists had petitioned the FCC to revoke Fox News’ local broadcast license in Philadelphia. More specifically, the group argued that Fox News’ rampant election fraud propaganda technically violated the “character clause” embedded in the Communications Act the FCC is supposed to use to determine whether an organization should […]
We’ve long believed in the power of online platform interoperability and the power it gives to users to curate their own experiences. One of the prime examples of this is Block Party, created by Tracy Chou, which has had to suspend its operations following ExTwitter’s API changes. Tracy joined us on the podcast once before […]
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